Sea Devils, Dolphins to square off for Region X title

Friday

Mar 7, 2014 at 10:52 PM

Victories by CFCC and BCC set up a showdown on Saturday in Bolivia.

By Tim HowerSport@StarNewsOnline.com

Coach Ryan Mantlo paced up and down the bench giving each of his players a fist bump as time expired on Cape Fear Community College's 87-78 victory over USC-Salkehatchie on Friday night.The Sea Devils clinched a berth in Saturday afternoon's Region X championship game where they will take on host Brunswick Community College at 2 p.m."Our guys showed character and resilience tonight that we've been preaching for six months now, and so it's fun to see a group of freshmen and a couple sophomores grow so much over the course of the year," said Mantlo, whose team was down as much as 15 points in the first half.CFCC (18-13) got off to a sluggish start that prompted Mantlo to call a timeout less than four minutes into the game. His team trailed 28-13 with 7:25 to play in the opening half after DaQuan Grant buried a tough 3-pointer, but Mantlo looked at the five players on the court and told them everything was all right."We've got eight freshmen and so they've never been in this tournament atmosphere before, and I knew if we could weather a storm that we would have a chance," Mantlo said. "You could see ourselves start to slow down and they hit a tough three, but I'm OK if it's a contested three and so that's why I was OK with it."The Sea Devils responded by closing the half on 24-10 run to trail by one at halftime. Demetres Abrams hit all three of his 3-pointers during the run.An Anthony Vanhook layup gave CFCC its first lead with 13:05 left to play. The score changed several more times before the Sea Devils finally took control.Vanhook was the catalyst offensively, scoring a game-high 29 points. Fellow freshmen Osandai Vaughn and DeMarcus Sanford chipped in 14 and 12 points, respectively.The Sea Devils shot 57 percent in the second half and 44 percent for the game.

The top-seeded Dolphins jumped out to a 21-10 lead midway through the first half and never looked back in knocking out the two-time defending champions.BCC (20-11) stymied Spartanburg Methodist all night. The Pioneers shot just 27 percent (17-for-63)."We are going to try to test that theory that defense wins championships," BCC coach Walter Shaw said. "We were trying to jump out on them because last time they jumped out on us and we couldn't catch up from behind."Cam Jones, the Region X player of the year, was held to just two points on 1-for-10 shooting. "This time of year somebody has to get it done," Shaw said. "He had a career-low two points, but we won by 14 points. You tell me that, and I think we are coming together as a team."